Tag: relationships

Hey guys! Long time, no speak!! I know it’s been a long time since I posted, but I’ve really missed you all, so I wanted to make sure that when I came back to blogging it was with a post that is really meaningful and special to me.

Naturally, I couldn’t think of a better or more… “on-brand” date than Halloween! Since I got married TWO YEARS AGO today, this is probably going to be quite a mushy ‘open letter’ type of post, so if you’re not into that type of thing, please feel free to check out some of my older Halloween content, such as this last minute “vampire” make-up tutorial! That being said, to my readers: I thought for this post I could formally introduce my husband to you, along with our love story so far. I hope you enjoy it, or at least find some comfort or joy from it in some way! To my closer friends and family who have probably heard lame renditions of this story a thousand times, I’m sorry!!

Dear Austin,

Growing up, as a chubby, bespectacled girl with THICK, frizzy Hermione-esque hair, a massive beauty mark, no top lip, and eyebrows the size of the sun… I got bullied a lot. I never felt like I was much to look at. Even as I hit puberty, got some contacts and discovered tweezers- the effects were lasting. As I grew into a young woman, I put up with a lot from boys, because I was grateful and flattered that anyone could see me as attractive at all. Some of them treated me abysmally, and totally skewed my opinion of love. Until, as I hit 18, I had a very real doubt that it existed at all.

In actuality, I liked being single. Naturally fiercely stubborn, wildly independent, and a true introvert- being alone was familiar, and comforting. No one to disagree with me, smother me, control me… or hurt me. By 21, I had almost completely absolved any expectations of finding “the one”, or realistically, any kind of long-term romantic partner.

The day I first talked to you (I think) was the 2nd March 2016. Shortly after you sent me the first tinder message, I’d just walked into the theatre to see the film “How to be single” in the cinema with a group of girls I was close with at university. The film basically is about a girl who was so “in love with the idea of love” that when she leaves her long term partner she doesn’t know how to function alone. I related to her a lot in the way that she actually found solace and adventure in being alone. Overall, the film left me feeling fulfilled, and confident in my singledom. As I left the theatre, you had hunted me down and messaged me on all my social medias, panicking, thinking that I had gotten bored of talking to you. Luckily for you- that wasn’t the case, and I found your pursuit endearing as a pose to creepy… (haha!).

Soon, I found we were talking all day, almost every day. I remember finding out you were American, and worrying that I’d find you obnoxious, loud, or that your accent would annoy me to tears. The first phone call we had, being the romantic I am, I said “Oh, your accent doesn’t actually piss me off”. Instead of finding my frankness rude, you found it hilarious, and I felt comfortable talking to you almost instantaneously, which is extremely uncommon for me. I remember thinking, “I could actually really be friends with this guy!” every time you hung up the phone.

The next week, returning from a night out early, as one of my girlfriends was too drunk to get into the club- I was complaining to you when I accidentally dropped my location pin on messenger. I had no idea that from that, you would get the idea in your head to spontaneously drive over to see me in the middle of the night. You arrived at 4am, I was still a touch under the influence and had no makeup on but the remnants of alien themed fancy dress, my hair was in a messy bun, and I was wearing my PJs under a big coat so that you wouldn’t get lost in the city. I told you “you shouldn’t have come”, and that I looked like a toe. You said I looked beautiful. I didn’t believe you, but then you came back, and you said the same thing every weekend thereafter.

I told you I didn’t want a boyfriend. That I didn’t have time while I was finishing my Bachelors. I was too career-oriented. Too perpetually single and selfish. You knew I was lying. I remember the way you refused to take my crap “You’ve been hurt before, I get it, but I won’t stop trying”. I thought you’d looked right through my soul to pull that out of the bag.

Within a month, you told me you loved me for the first time. I thought I’d misheard you because you were drunk, and laughed it off awkwardly. The week after, you left a post-it note on my ceiling saying the same thing- only this time, I couldn’t ‘mishear’ it. I slipped a similar note into your pocket as you left my flat the next weekend.

Loving you was easy. It wasn’t scary, intense, suffocating or anxiety inducing like it was with other guys. It was natural, easy, free. Like coming home after a long day. You never let me doubt you, never let me feel insecure, and never gave up on me when I was difficult. Most amazingly of all, you made me believe in love again when I was so adamant that wasn’t on the cards for me. You made me realise how much I DESERVED to be loved.

Finishing my degree, moving back home and becoming your girlfriend felt like a whirlwind. You were spending all your free time staying with me, until my grandma’s tenant moved out and she offered to let us stay at her empty property until it was filled. Deep down, after our first weekend there, I think we both knew that this was how things were meant to be. After about a mere month of staying together, we talked about how we would love having this house to be a reality. Tentatively, with the threat of you being deployed/stationed back in the US, or someone else moving into this house, you suggested that if we got married, the military would make things easier for us to make that happen. Again, I laughed it off. In the grand scheme of things, we’d been dating roughly half a year. “He must be crazy!” I confided in my Grandma. But after talking to her, she suggested that I was afraid of the wedding, and what people would say, and not the commitment. We soon realised that while this was true, I was never afraid of a marriage with you. Living with you and being with you felt so natural and normal- and I just knew.

Not long after, we were discussing moving in together more objectively. I was upstairs in front a mirror next to our mattress on the ground, dying my hair “boring poo brown” for a job interview, and you suggested it again, this time a bit more certainly. “We could get married?” I laughed… “Yeah, we could”. There was a lot of “WAIT WHAT?” and “Oh my god are we engaged?” before you immediately ran downstairs to ring your parents and let them know. My hair hadn’t even finished developing.

At the tender age of 21, despite our parents knowing us well enough to understand, and though they wished we’d had a longer engagement, they understood why we were rushing. Other people however, besides a select few, thought we were insane, or that I was pregnant. (Two years on and still no unplanned offspring, just a healthy relationship and too many cakes thank you very much lol!). It’s really uncommon to get married so young in the U.K, outside of religious groups and cults- so I can understand why, but I became hyper-aware of people discussing my relationship, doubting our sincerity, and being pretty negative. I’ve always been way too concerned with what people thought about me, but you helped me to realise that nothing mattered outside of our happiness. If anything, it became “me and you against the world” very quickly. It made us stronger where a lot of couples might have waivered. I knew then, that your loyalty would almost be able to rival mine, and that we would be able to tackle anything together.

We knew what we were signing up for. We knew we were young. We knew we were stupid and giddy and in love. But we also knew we would be able to grow together, to change together, to choose to love one another even when it was hardest. We’ve had times like those. But in a much greater quantity, we’ve had the best time of our lives.

We brought a fur baby into the house, and argued a great deal about parenting the most obnoxious kitten ever, but we managed so well that we have the most confident, affectionate and dog-like feline dude I’ve ever known. We’ve struggled through finances, through my battles with employment and career stability, through arguments about washing up and even Mental Health.

Through it all, I’ve never doubted your love for me. You’re my rock, my team, my player 2, my support, my lover, my best friend and my biggest fan. We are so vastly different, and yet, you compliment me in ways I never knew possible. Your extroversion, your confidence and your Labrador-like zest for life makes me smile every day. You know when I’m too shy or uncomfortable in social situations and take the focus easily and subtly (or not, as the case may sometimes be). You lift me up and try tirelessly to lift me up when I’m low. You cry enough for the both of us. You put up with me when I’m feeling sick and sorry for myself. You think I’m pretty even when I look like I’ve been sleeping in a bin for a week and a day.

But most of all, you love me for my truest, most vulnerable and natural states. I used to worry about marriage, because I thought I’d never be able to truly be myself around someone else. But the fact is, I’m more myself with you than I was before, and I don’t know how that’s possible. So that I don’t ramble on any further, I just wanted to say that I love you. It’s been two years and I’m still not over the novelty of calling you “my husband”. I don’t even mind being that 1% gross statistic that actually married someone from Tinder anymore! 😂 This piece is a testament for you, the incredible man that I’ve come to know and love on a level I never knew possible. I’m so damn grateful that it’s you that I get to grow old with. I can’t wait to annoy you for the rest of my days!

Happy Two Year Anniversary!

I love you always.

Francesca.

X

Dear Readers,

I hope that If you’re reading this and you’re feeling lost, un-loveable or down about love, the best advice I can ever give you is to love yourself. Appreciate yourself. Meditate, look inwards and learn about what you need or desire from a romantic partner. Remember you deserve happiness, and until you find someone worthwhile, don’t give up your singlehood, because actually, it can be great. You’ll know when you find ‘your person’, because it will make your life even more fun. I promise. xx

Regular readers, since in both my anxiety tips, and my graduate mental health posts, I touched on the importance of cutting ties with toxic individuals, I thought it only fair to share with you my own experiences, and some of the sorts of behaviours you should look out for and try to avoid when trying to lead a positive life. I created this series both as a form of therapy and a means of warning/advising others who may feel like they are in the same boat. I’m making this a series, as it was a little long to include several types of toxic friend in one post. I aim to post at 11am GMT each week until the series is done.

Ps. Please don’t be afraid to walk away if someone is damaging your energy. It does not make you a bad person to walk away from someone who is toxic. You deserve happiness! x

The One(s) I Hoped I’d Never Have To Write

For me, though I can be hard to get to know initially, my morals are such that after I’ve been with/through a certain amount of things with a person, I will generally love them almost as an extension of my family. This is something that never fully goes away. These are the most painful friendship breakups of all. The ones where you’ve grown together, but sometimes they start to grow in a direction you don’t like. The ones where the person in your memories doesn’t coincide with the person stood before you today. The ones whose energy has changed and become suffocating or poisonous to your own.

For me, and i’m sure for many of you out there, you may find yourselves holding on to the people in memories, even though they don’t exist anymore. You may try to turn a blind eye to the negative traits they’ve picked up, hoping and wishing for it to just be a phase. The fact is, that life changes us. Sometimes people grow apart, and sometimes they grow into people who- when you really make yourself face the music, you don’t recognise… or even like anymore. This whole series was inspired by a recent experience. If the person(s) concerned are reading this (which I doubt as the lack of support has been going on for much longer than I realised), know that I’m sorry.

This is to be my final post in the series, with a view to opening it up again later on if anyone has any ideas or requests on toxic friends I’ve missed. This one was particularly hard for me to write hence I saved it till last. I hope you all can build the courage to end friendships that are/become toxic no matter how long you have been friends, because ultimately holding on to people that don’t love and support you in a genuine, healthy way will only damage you, and impact your life negatively. It’s ok to let people go if their energy isn’t right for you.

Dear Ex-Friend,

Life changed us, stretched our relationship over distances that meant we grew apart. We saw each other less and less, and each time I would see you I would notice differences. Some subtle, the shifts in your energy… less so. Before long the person sat before me was someone I didn’t feel that I knew. The person I knew and loved was too crazy and fun-loving to even notice things that this new person would say out of jealousy or spite. We used to be like siblings, but we changed.

I grew drained as each time we met a new person would become the subject of your anger. I tried to love you through it, sometimes smiling through discomfort and worst of all joining in, really wanting to believe that these people deserved the words you were saying. Hoping that you’d only talk about people this way if they’d severely wronged you, but before long I couldn’t miss the pangs of envy that tainted your conversations. The people you spoke of all had something that you wished you had, and though the picture of victimisation was one I wanted to believe, the green began to seep through the cracks.

Before long I couldn’t help but wonder what you’d be saying about me behind my back. As I distanced myself, I felt the hostility growing inside you. Instead of looking inwards to consider why someone wouldn’t want to be friends with you, you lashed out. Not to mention, as it turns out, I was right to wonder.

I cannot fathom what could have happened in a persons life, to turn someone I loved for their carefree attitude and mutual aversion to b*tching about others into someone who could be so nasty. I supported you through everything I could, and ignored new warning signs as long as I possibly could have. But even as I felt resigned to distance myself from the friendship, nothing could have prepared me for the betrayal I felt when I heard that I’d become the topic of dinner conversation.

When I started blogging, I knew I would be judged for it. That’s one of the reasons I made sure to really cut down my Facebook down to people that I know (or thought I knew) loved me. To be ridiculed for doing something innocent and productive with my spare time, to say things like “who cares what she has to say?” was bad enough. But to screenshot a selfie and to tear apart my actual physical appearance, my marriage, my existence… To be that spiteful towards someone you shared years of memories with- was unforgivable.

To you, dear “friend”, I honestly hope that some day you can fill the void or the chip on your shoulder and realise that the world isn’t out to get you. Treating the people who love you awfully isn’t going to wind up benefitting your life, it will only push people away till you wind up alone. I never thought I would have to say goodbye to you, and part of me hopes that in a few years time this will have all just been a phase. I truly hope you can recover the person you were, because I know that deep down this toxic person isn’t you. But until then, for my own sanity, I think I’ll have to put this one to rest.

I believe everything in life happens for a reason. I believe that soul-mates are not always romantic partners, or “the one”, or even necessarily friends made to last; but they may also be people you meet at a time in your life when you need each other for one reason or another. As they say, some friends come for a lifetime, and others just a season, but to me that’s no reason to say that you can’t cherish the memories you made together. Ultimately, you hold the pen to your novel. When I was younger, all I ever wanted was to fit in. When I met you, for what ever reason, I did. As we grew, our views on love, friendship and trust began to grow and change- and us with them. If you’re reading this, and you find I’ve left you behind, know that it was never easy for me. For me, when I love someone, I love them loyally and wholeheartedly. No matter what you’ve done, or how time has gnarled us, know that I wish you the best.

Love From,

Frankii x

**DISCLAIMER: This post is not directed at any one in particular, but there may be elements applicable to several people whom, for one reason or another, are no longer a part of my journey.**